


praefoco

by handydandynotebook



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Complicated Relationships, Domestic Violence, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Neil Hargrove is His Own Warning, Not Happy, POV Minor Character, Post-Season/Series 03, Rape/Non-con Elements, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:20:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26662837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handydandynotebook/pseuds/handydandynotebook
Summary: The drinking, the loaded silences, the beer cans, they’re all warning signs. When Neil moves around the house, it’s with agitation. He lumbers with the squared shoulders and heavy footfalls that used to mean Billy had done something to set him off and was due for a beating when he came home. Eventually Neil’s fists are going to land somewhere else and Susan…Susan won’t be able to stop him. But she’ll be able to make sure it isn’t Max. That much, she can do. That much, she must. That much, she has to.
Relationships: Neil Hargrove/Susan Hargrove, Susan Hargrove & Maxine "Max" Mayfield
Comments: 11
Kudos: 21





	praefoco

**Author's Note:**

> the rape in this is non-explicit but it very much happens.

Susan can’t sleep. She gets up and busies herself with cleaning instead. She polishes the kitchen sink with stainless steel spray and dusts around the television set. She runs a damp rag over the windowsill and idly wonders if Neil would let her put a plant here. They have a few plants left over from the service Susan hasn’t figured out what to do with, potted white lilies and a couple of dish gardens. 

No, Neil certainly wouldn’t want any of those in the living room. 

Susan chews at her fingernail and slips back down the hall. She pauses as she hears a quiet sound from Billy’s room and it’s so strange that her immediate instinct is to attribute it to him even though he’s been gone for nearly two weeks. She keeps doing that. 

Catches herself preparing dinner for four people. Finds herself anticipating the arrival of the Camaro in the driveway. Keeps waiting for his horrible music to rattle the walls whenever Neil is out. She’s constantly expecting Billy to be here. Even though they’d never been close, Susan hasn’t quite wrapped her mind around the fact that she’s never going to see him again. 

Perhaps it would be easier to accept if there had been a body left to bury. There hadn't. It was in a mass grave with the rubble of the Starcourt Mall. 

In any case, Susan must have imagined the sound. Except she hears another one and that’s when she realizes it must be Max. She carefully turns the knob and steps over the threshold. Max is there, curled up in Billy’s bed, sniffling into the pillow. 

Her eyes widen as the dim hall light spills into the room, shoulders stiffening. 

“Don’t worry,” Susan murmurs. “It’s just me. Neil is still sleeping.” 

Max relaxes but rolls onto her other side anyway, back to Susan. Probably doesn’t want her mother to see her tears. Susan sighs out and pushes the door behind her until it’s mostly closed. She quietly pads to the bed and climbs over the mattress, settling in next to Max. 

Susan tucks herself around her daughter as much as she can and feels, rather than hears, the soft breath she releases. When her head hits the pillow, she realizes she can smell the aerosol from Billy’s hair product. It’s been quite awhile since this bedding’s been washed. He would never put it in the hamper himself and approaching him about it had always been an awkward affair. 

“Do you want to talk?” 

A few heartbeats pass and Max doesn’t answer but the way she’s breathing tells Susan she’s still awake. 

“I really hated him sometimes,” she grates out eventually, raw as peeling sunburn. “But I cared about him too. I never stopped caring about him, even when I tried.” 

Susan bites her lip and gently strokes up and down Max’s forearm. 

“I don’t know if he knew,” she pules, scarcely audible, voice quavering. “I don’t know if he knew about the second part…” 

Susan wants to comfort her. To promise her that he did. But in all truth, Susan doesn’t have the faintest idea. She couldn’t tell you Billy’s favorite color or his favorite food, and she only knew his preferred brand of cigarettes because he’d always hide the butts in her potted ficus. 

“Don’t torture yourself like that, Max. Don’t agonize over questions you’ll never have answers to.” 

Max draws a deep breath. She rolls over in Susan’s arms and buries her face in her chest. Susan’s nightshirt grows damp with her daughter’s tears as she helplessly rubs her back and hopes that by the end of it, she’ll be able to coax her back into her own bed. 

* * *

In the weeks following the private, quiet affair that was Billy’s memorial, Neil starts drinking more. He drinks more and he talks less, and he starts leaving his beer cans around the house even though he’d always been disgusted when Billy did the same. He starts shaving less and less, and when he does, there are always nicks left on his face. 

Neil has never been a sloppy man, that was one of the things that drew Susan to him, honestly. He isn’t coping at all. He hasn’t spoken Billy’s name since he gave the eulogy nor set foot in his room. Susan can feel something building in him, something dark, something dangerous. Neil lost his son and his outlet in the same go and he isn’t wearing it well. 

The drinking, the loaded silences, the beer cans, they’re all warning signs. When Neil moves around the house, it’s with agitation. He lumbers with the squared shoulders and heavy footfalls that used to mean Billy had done something to set him off and was due for a beating when he came home. Eventually Neil’s fists are going to land somewhere else and Susan…

Susan won’t be able to stop him. But she’ll be able to make sure it isn’t Max. That much, she can do. That much, she must. That much, she has to. 

She decides to set some money aside to buy herself some new clothes. More long sleeves, she thinks, will be in order. Turtlenecks sound sensible. Sunglasses, perhaps, should be considered. 

Susan waters her ficus and finds an old cigarette butt hidden in the dirt. She plucks it free and exhales wearily. Closes it in her palm and purses her lips, tucking her hand to her chest. 

She’d never been particularly fond of Billy. She does not miss him. She does wish he were here, though. Lord, she wishes he were here.

Some people may confuse that for missing him but Susan knows it’s not the same at all. 

* * *

“Let’s go out for ice cream,” Susan chirps, clapping her hands together. 

Max’s face screws up in disbelief. “For breakfast? Who are you and what have you done with my mom?” 

“It’s been a long time since we’ve done something fun together,” Susan insists, waving her hand. “Let’s treat ourselves to ice cream for breakfast before summer comes to an end. Live on the wild side.” 

Max scoffs and rolls her eyes. “That’s your idea of living on the wild side?” 

“The offer’s going once, going twice—“ 

“Okay, okay!” Max cracks the first smile Susan’s seen from her in so long, she doesn’t even remember the last time, and it warms her like the sun. “Ice cream for breakfast!” 

Susan smiles back and nods her head to the door. “Let’s go, then.”

Susan isn’t sure whether she should bring up what she wants to discuss before or after ice cream. Before might be good, just to get it over and done with. After might be better, save the sour taste it will certainly leave in Max’s mouth until after she’s had her treat. 

Susan decides to bring it up after and the drive to the ice cream parlor is pleasant. Max rolls down her window and sticks her hand out, fingers fanning as the air rushes past. Susan turns on the radio. She hums along to the music and maybe Max does too. 

When it’s their turn in line, Max starts to order a simple strawberry cone and Susan gives her shoulder a playful swat. 

“You can get that anytime,” she says. “I’m buying, let’s go bigger.” 

Max’s lashes flutter and she gives Susan a look like she thinks she’s being goofy. Lopsided, bemused smile tweaking her lips. 

“Um, okay. How about that one?” she points at a monster of a sundae on the menu behind the counter. 

It’s neapolitan snowballs of soft serve, topped with all the fixings and then some. Hot fudge and caramel sauce, nuts and chips and cookie dough chunks.

“That’s more like it.” Susan grins and rubs her shoulder. 

Max is still looking at her like she doesn’t know what to make of all this. Susan hopes she isn’t trying too hard. But the monster sundae is what they order and once it’s in front of her on the picnic table, Max is absolutely sold. 

She digs into the thing like a treasure hunter who just struck gold. Susan just watches her as her own sweet spoonfuls melt in her mouth. She watches her daughter’s eyes glimmer as her mouth smears with dessert. She imagines them swollen shut and purpled and her stomach churns and she knows that must never, ever happen.

Susan doesn’t think they could ever finish the whole thing but they do. She squeezes hand sanitizer onto her sticky fingers and makes Max do the same even though she rolls her eyes. When they leave, Susan doesn’t start the car right away. It breaks her heart to ruin the mood, but she knows she has to. 

“I’m glad we had an ice cream breakfast…” 

“Me too.” Max thumps her chest and belches, the very antithesis of ladylike. 

“…but it isn’t the only reason I wanted to take you out. We need to talk about Neil.” 

“Oh.” Max’s face crumples in a scowl. “What about him?” 

“You need to stay out of his way.” 

“I always stay out of his way.” 

“Maxine, this is serious.” Susan whips her head to her. “Be cautious and tidy, and mind your manners. Do not speak to Neil unless he speaks to you first. Do not do anything you know he’d disapprove of. Do not even wear clothes you know he wouldn’t like.” 

“So basically, you want me to act just like you,” Max mutters, arms crossing over her chest. 

It’s a dig that Susan swallows without a flinch. 

“These past few weeks have been very hard on him—“ 

“Hard on _him_!?” Max recoils, immediately snapping from sour to furious. “Neil lost a punching bag! I watched my brother die!” 

Susan gapes openly, shock striking her core in a bolt and rippling outward. 

“Oh, Max,” she breathes, voice hushed. “I didn’t know you saw…” 

“There’s a lot you don’t know!” 

“How would I?” Susan stammers weakly. “You never tell me anything anymore.” 

“Because I can’t!” Max uncrosses her arms to throw her hands up and she whips her head away from Susan, facing out the window. “Even if I could, why would I? You don’t even feel like my mom anymore. These days, it’s like you’re nothing but Neil’s shadow.”

Susan can’t swallow back the sting of that one. She grips the steering wheel even though she still hasn’t started the car yet, and blinks back the mist gathering in her eyes. 

“No matter what you think about me or Neil, the fact remains that this has been very hard on him,” Susan continues. “He’s struggling and he’s slipping, and I think he’s going to lash out.” 

Max’s head slowly turns, eyes sliding back to Susan’s. 

“You cannot give him any reason to lash out in your direction. I need you to be on your very best behavior, Maxine. I need you to be aware and I need you to be careful. Do you understand me?” 

“Yeah.” Max huffs through her nose. 

“I need to hear you say it,” Susan says, surprising herself with how shrill she is. “This is important, tell me you understand.” 

Max’s eyes flicker. 

“You sound like…never mind.” Max looks away. “Yes. I understand.” 

“Thank you.” Susan exhales a sigh of relief and starts the car. 

She switches the radio on as she pulls out of the parking lot. This time, neither of them hum along. 

* * *

In the next town over, Susan spends some time at the outlet mall, buying herself more long sleeved shirts and makeup she thinks would conceal bruises. She picks out turtlenecks and fashionable scarves, and all kinds of makeup. On some level she realizes how pitiful she is, buying these things and preparing to be beaten. She should should be ashamed of herself and she is, truthfully, but what else is she going to do?

Call the cops? 

As if Neil had never talked his way out of legal trouble before, albeit primarily on his son’s behalf. As if half of those men in uniform don’t go home to beat their own wives and children senseless. In Susan’s experience, police officers never care about protecting people so much as they care about having power over them, boastfully brandishing their shiny badges and toting guns on their hips like cowboys in those shoot ‘em up spaghetti westerns.

Get a divorce? 

Simply unfathomable. Neil would ever allow that. She and Max are the only family he has in the wake of Billy’s loss. He’d never back down and just agree to let them go. 

Run away? 

Sure, sure, as if she could just flee with her daughter in the middle of the night and end up okay on the other side of it in some brand new city with some brand new life. Living costs money and Susan hasn’t had a full-time job in years. Neil was always stringent about being the breadwinner even back in California, always insisted that it was a man’s responsibility to provide for his family. She switched to part-time after they began dating to appease his traditional sensibilities and that was before the move. She hasn’t been employed at all since. 

The solutions seem so simple only as long as the consequences aren’t considered. And once they are, well…

Susan bites her lip and adds a soft, slate gray pullover to her shopping cart. 

* * *

“Can you clear out Billy’s room? Get rid of all his things?” 

It’s the first time Neil’s said his son’s name in weeks and he spits it out like it has a foul taste. His gaze is hard in a way that lets Susan know these are not actually questions. 

“Of course,” she answers. 

“I paid good money for those clothes, so don’t trash anything unless it’s ruined,” he goes on. “Give everything in good condition to the Salvation Army but wash the cigarette smell out first. Smoke stink clings to everything.” 

Susan nods obediently, finds she cannot speak. 

“Just get rid of all of it, Susan. Throw out what can’t be salvaged, donate everything that can. I trust your judgement when it comes to that but one way or the other, it’s all gotta go,” Neil says decisively, shaking his head. “Everything does. He’s been gone over a month, it’s time now.” 

“Of course,” Susan repeats, her stomach in ropes. 

Neil takes his eyes off her and leaves for work without another word. 

Susan knows she must finish this task before Neil returns but she can’t quite bring herself to get started right off the bat. She needs a moment to digest what he’s asked her to do. So she makes herself a cup of chamomile tea and takes hot sips that scotch her throat. 

In the back of her mind, there had always been this unwelcome suspicion that Billy might die young. She didn’t dwell on it much, didn’t like to think about such ugly things nor confront herself for having these ugly things in her head. But he was rebellious and reckless, collecting speeding tickets the way old maids collected cats, stumbling home smashed at 3:00 A.M., eyes glassy and knuckles bloody. It hadn’t done much to ease her apprehension, to say the least. 

Susan had distantly dreaded the day might come where Billy rolled his car over or wrapped it around a tree trunk. The day he snorted too much cocaine, or something much stronger he mistook for cocaine. The day he picked a fight with the wrong person or succumbed to alcohol poisoning in some stranger’s house or at home, maybe, asphyxiating on his own vomit in his bedroom under the racket of his boombox blasting that godawful music, quietly dying behind a door slammed shut. 

An explosion at the mall hadn’t been in Susan’s purview, the details of which she can’t get out of Max and the local news never actually elaborated on. But maybe the details don’t matter anyway, because the loss is the same with or without them. No matter how Billy went, he went and he’s gone. His stuff is all that’s left and if Susan wants to placate Neil, that all needs to go too. 

She finishes her tea and slips into his room. She dumps his drawers out into the washing machine. Pulls clothes off his hangers and stuffs them into the hamper for a second cycle. Cigarette smoke and cheap cologne haunt her every step. 

She sweeps the foil wrappers off his nightstand and into the wastebasket. Finds a small baggie of white powder in the drawer and flushes it down the toilet. Briefly leafs through the magazines she discovers under the mattress, fans herself when she feels her face go cherry red. Those, she rolls up tight as they’ll go and stuffs them at the very bottom of the trash. 

Susan hollows herself out by the hour, ridding the room of bits of Billy until it’s barely more than this nondescript impersonal space. 

Billy was a pretty shitty stepson, all in all. Tempestuous as a hurricane. Nasty attitude and nasty habits, poster boy for bad behavior. Never knew when to quit, probably didn’t even realize there was a such thing as quitting. He set a disastrous example for Max in every way, one Susan nightly prayed she would never follow. 

Billy was a pretty shitty stepson but Susan supposes she was a pretty shitty stepmom too. Maybe because she never truly tried to be one. In fact one of the very first things Billy ever said to her was, _“what’s it to you? you’re not my mom,”_ after she’d asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. That was eight or nine years ago but she remembers it as clear as day, and she’d never made any actual attempt to mother him, and he never did grow up, really— didn’t even make it to twenty. 

Susan wonders if she should’ve tried a little harder. He didn’t want her to, no, but that doesn’t mean she shouldn’t have tried. It was easier not to put in the effort. To let him do whatever he was going to do, because Billy was mule stubborn and coyote wild, and Neil’s. Most of all, Billy was Neil’s. 

Billy was Neil’s and he didn’t even make it to twenty, and Susan can’t stop wondering if there’s anything she could’ve done to change that. Perhaps if she’d tried to be more to him, more for him, more than the person who silently placed dinner plates in front of him, more than the person who nervously ducked out of the room when— 

Oh, what’s the use in going down that rabbit hole? 

There isn’t. It’s like she’d told Max. Don’t agonize over questions you’ll never have answers to. 

* * *

Max comes home before Neil does. It’s only when she’s standing the doorway of Billy’s room that Susan realizes she doesn’t actually know where she’d gone. Out with her friends, yes, but out where? 

Susan’s so grateful she has enough friends to be out of the house so often while Neil’s at his most volatile, that she hasn’t really paid much thought to where they go or what they do. She should probably ask, probably get more involved, but Max is the one who questions her first. 

“What are you doing?” 

Susan swallows and finishes folding the stonewashed jeans in her hand, placing them in the cardboard box she’d marked for donation. Max’s gaze shifts from the box around the room, darting from blank wall to blank wall, and cleared out dresser drawers. Her hands ball into fists but the look she gives Susan is utterly heartbroken. 

“Neil thought it was time to…” Susan feels her own heart ache, lump rising in her throat. She can’t actually finish her sentence, so she takes another pair of jeans from the laundry basket instead. She folds it on the fully stripped mattress, then places it in the box atop the last pair. 

“Of course he did,” Max seethes, eyes narrowed. “And you batted your eyes and said, ‘yes, dear,’ because that’s all you do! Neil tells you to jump, you ask how high!”

“What else do you want me to do, Max?” Susan asks tiredly, gesturing around the room. “Billy’s gone, he doesn’t need his things anymore.” 

“That’s not the point!” Max shouts, cheeks reddening as she smashes the side of her fist against the door frame. “I am so sick of you being so freaking spineless, like— like some jellyfish!” 

She spins on her heel and stomps off to her room in a huff. Susan winces when she hears the door slam down the hall, sucking her lip between her teeth. She decides not to go after her. Not yet. Max has been hurting and she wasn’t expecting to come home to this, to Billy’s room rendered bare. It must be like salt in the wound. 

Susan pulls a pair of shorts out of the laundry basket and stuffs them in the trash bag. She can’t donate these. The blood stains didn’t come out. 

She makes her way through the basket, neatly folds clothes that after a cupful of extra detergent and liquid softener, no longer smell like cigarettes or hair product or musky body spray. She stacks them into the cardboard boxes with a heavy heart. Eventually the boxes are full and the trash bag is too. 

Susan empties the room and empties something of herself along the way, placing the trash bag in the bin outside and loading the boxes into her car. The only things left of Billy’s in the room are the skeletal dresser gutted of its drawers, the bare bed stripped of its sheets, and the leather jacket. 

Neil wouldn’t expect her to do anything about the furniture, but he won’t be happy if the jacket is still in the closet by the time he gets back. Susan folds it over her arm, gnaws her lip as she strokes her fingers over the cool, smooth grain of the back. She’s pretty sure Max likes this one. She thinks Max liked the denim one too, but that one has already been packed away. 

It’s a nice jacket. Quality, expensive. It requires dry cleaning, so Susan couldn’t wash it like she washed his other things. It’d be a shame to throw it away. 

Susan slips down the hall and heads to the back door. On the platform before the basement stairs, a stretch of coat hooks line the wall. Susan hangs Billy’s jacket on the farthest hook and rearranges the other coats around it to keep it hidden. 

With that, she pads back down the hallway and raps her knuckles against Max’s bedroom door. 

“Can I come in?” 

“No,” is the sulky, muffled response. 

Well, okay. Susan clears her throat and speaks a bit louder. 

“I’m going to go drop the donation boxes off but I left something for you by the back door. It’s behind your purple windbreaker and your raincoat. Don’t let Neil see it, okay?” 

“…okay.” 

Susan lingers for a heartbeat. Rests her forehead against her daughter’s door, wanting to go in and hug her more than anything. But she really does need to drop the boxes off before the place closes, and it seems like what Max wants right now is space. 

* * *

“Are you going to get that?” Neil barks at her when there’s a second knock at the door, reclined in his armchair, beer in hand. 

Susan agreeably rises and answers the door. There’s a young man in front of her, some college student from a family down the street. She’s seen him around, is pretty sure his name starts with an F, something like Foster or Forrester. Been home for the summer, will probably be returning to school sooner than later. 

“Hello,” he greets, smiling pleasantly. 

Susan hears Neil mute the television behind her. 

“Hi.” She puts on her own polite smile. “How can I help you?” 

“I was actually hoping to help you. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help noticing that your lawn could use a little T-L-C.” 

Susan keeps smiling as he jerks his thumb toward the overgrown grass. Hopes he doesn’t notice that her heart drops right into her stomach, because cutting the grass used to be Billy’s chore. Neither Susan nor Max have the physical prowess to get that rusty clunker of a mower started. She’s been meaning to ask Neil to do it, but asking Neil to do anything lately is a precarious affair. 

“How much do you charge?” 

“Usually ten bucks a lawn but I don’t mind knocking it down to five for a pretty lady such as yourself.” He looks her up and down and winks suggestively. 

Susan washes ice cold and silently prays Neil wasn’t listening. She’s really in for it if he heard that one. Neil is possessive like a bulldog with a bone. 

“I’d better pay you ten,” she says and she’s still smiling but her tone is pointed, and the playful twinkle in his eye fades away. 

She fetches her purse from the kitchen table, fishes out a crumpled ten, and smooths it before she thrusts it out to him. 

“Lawnmower and gas can are in the garage, knock if you need anything else and put it back when you’re finished. Okay?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” Foster or Forrester, or whatever his name is, wheels around and scurries down the walkway. 

Susan shuts the door behind him and treads back into the living room with wariness, eyes on Neil. 

“The boy from down the street is going to cut the grass for us.” 

“So I heard,” Neil says, curt. “You just gave him permission to go into my garage and handle my mower, and you didn’t even consider checking with me first.” 

Susan snaps flagpole straight, pulse racing with alarm. She does her best not to let it show. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it would bother you.” 

“No?” Neil raises a brow. “You ought to see my problem with strangers coming around and getting familiar with what’s mine.” 

Susan swallows and realizes that she is going to pay a lot more than ten dollars for the young man’s flattery. 

Neil knows she knows it, too. He fixes her with the stern stare of a dogcatcher who’s just cornered a pooch that dared to bite, rod in hand. Stares at her until Susan shrinks away and retreats to the kitchen, tail tucked between her legs. 

* * *

Her attempt to pacify Neil with a dinner neatly garnished, served with all his favorite sides and apple pie for dessert, is a failure. She knows it in his eyes but swallows her panic in between bites of her food and puts on a placid demeanor so as not to alarm Max. Max inhales three pieces of pie and burps like a frat boy, and for one singular moment, Susan is actually grateful to have earned Neil’s ire. Otherwise he might’ve given her more than a mildly annoyed reprimand about manners. 

Max offers to help her clean up afterward but Susan immediately dismisses her and sends her away. Max needs to be in her bedroom, away from Neil. And Susan needs to stay out of her own room, also away from Neil. She takes as long in the kitchen as she possibly can, after all the dishes are cleaned and drying in the racks, she scrubs every nook and cranny of the room. She scrubs until it is spotless and sparkling. It could almost be a display kitchen at the hardware store, if not for the dings and scratches in the table. 

She cleans up Neil’s latest collection of beer cans, stuffing them in shopping bags and stowing them away in the pantry. Later in the week, Susan will make a trip to the store and return them for the deposit. She proceeds to dust the living room from top to bottom. 

It is late but not late enough, and Susan still dreads what she’ll find in her bedroom. So she decides to clean the bathroom too. She preps a plastic tub with cleaner and hot water and gets down on her hands and knees to wash the floor. She uses a good brush with stiff, nylon bristles to get at the grout. 

Susan makes it about halfway down the tiles when a foot catches her right under the ribs. Shooting stars cut through her vision. Her shoulder knocks into the tub. It capsizes. Sudsy water floods everywhere. Neil kicks her again, right onto her back and the breath is ripped right out of Susan’s lungs as the impact of hitting the tile reverberates through her spine. 

For a very long moment, Neil just hovers over her. 

“What was that earlier, huh?” he demands, eyes blazing. “Flirting with another man, ten feet away from your husband?” 

“It w-wasn’t like that. He was just being s-sweet,” Susan splutters, gasping for air like a fish on the beach. “Just a silly boy being sweet, Neil, that’s all it was.” 

Neil glares down at her in disgust. For a moment Susan thinks he’s going to spit on her, but he undoes his belt and that is worse. He slips his belt out of the loops and drops it on the floor. It lands with a splash in the sudsy puddle. 

“Neil…” Susan begins to plead and just stops, realizing there is no point. 

He’s already climbing on top. There’s no stopping him. She’s never been able to stop Neil from doing anything. 

Susan goes limp as he seizes her sweatpants by the waistband and gruffly wrestles them down her hips. She does not shout. She does not struggle or resist. She goes as slack as a possum playing dead in the path of its predator. 

Neil straddles her and takes her wrists in one big calloused hand, pins them down above her head. 

“Don’t look at me like that, Susan.” His other hand fans over the side of her face and pushes it into the tile so hard, her teeth clack against it. Soapy water and grit rush into her mouth, the chemical taste of the cleaner tingling unpleasantly upon her tongue. 

“Don’t look at me,” Neil repeats above her, beer breath blasting hot over her skin. 

Susan squeezes her eyes shut tight. 

* * *

Susan has bruises on her wrists in the morning. They’re lighter than the one on her stomach, which is an angry purple splotch. There’s a streak of blood crusted along her thigh that isn’t menstrual and she mindlessly wipes it away with a damp washcloth. 

She cooks Neil eggs over easy, like she can be counted on to do. She refills his coffee cup as if it’s just any other morning. And it is. Actually, Neil seems to be more at ease than he’s been in awhile. He gives her ass a grope and her lips a peck before he leaves for work and Susan is left standing there with the realization that splitting her open on the bathroom floor must have released some of his pent up aggression. 

Perhaps it is a good thing then. What happened last night. The less aggression he’s carrying around, the less chances there of Max stepping on a landmine. 

Susan wears the slate pullover she’d bought and spends the morning bustling around, ignoring the dull throb of her bruises and distracting herself with odds and ends. She trims her ficus today. She’d ended up putting the cigarette butt back where she’d found it, instead of discarding it like a normal person would. Billy putting cigarette butts in her ficus and Susan picking them out was the closest the two of them ever came to sharing any kind of bonding activity.

Susan would like to shower but she can’t bring herself to go back into the bathroom just yet, so she straightens the bookshelf instead. She picks up a book she hasn’t read before, because she likes the pinto pony on the cover. It looks like the one she used to ride at her uncle’s farm once upon a time. Susan is probably older than the intended demographic, but she curls up on the couch and reads it anyway. 

She doesn’t glance up until Max sleepily plods into the living room. 

“Morning, Mom.” 

“Morning.” Susan smiles thinly. 

“Whatcha reading?” 

Susan realizes she’s evidently three chapters into this story but can’t even remember enough to conjure up a summary. 

“Just an old kid’s book.” She flaps her hand and sets it aside. “Are you hungry?”

“Not yet.” Max blinks and lets out a sharp gasp, eyes widening. 

Susan follows her gaze and finds her sleeve’s crept down, some of the bruises peeking out. She wets her lips and quickly tugs it back into place. 

“I’ll kill him,” Max declares, a dark edge to her voice even as her bottom lip trembles. 

“Max,” Susan warns, reproachful and honestly a tad startled. “Stop.” 

“I’ll kill him, I swear,” she growls, gaze flashing ferociously. “I’ve seen scarier things than Neil.”

“Stop.” Susan swallows, placing her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and squeezing gently. “I mean it. I don’t ever want to hear you speak that way.” 

“But he hurt you!” Max’s face contorts in a mix of pain and anger. 

“He didn’t,” Susan protests, shaking her head. “I— I spilled some cleaner in the bathroom last night and I tripped.” 

Max regards her dubiously but Susan bobs her head along and tries to sell the story. 

“I couldn’t sleep. You know I like to clean when I can’t sleep. I should’ve been more careful.” 

Max doesn’t seem entirely convinced but her anger dims and her fists unclench. 

_I’ll kill him,_ still echoes in Susan’s ears but she looks at her daughter’s fists and can’t resist mentally comparing the size to Neil’s. Each about the size of a ripe peach, she’d guess. Max’s peaches verses Neil’s frozen turkeys. There was a clear winner to that fight that Susan is honestly horrified her daughter seemed so ready to pick, even if it was just the anger talking. There’s something else about Max’s immediate reaction needling at her too. 

“What did you mean when you said you’ve seen things scarier than Neil?” Susan tilts her head, frowning in nonplus. 

Max blinks rapidly. She looks away from Susan, at the wall. 

“I mean…You know I saw what happened to Billy,” she says eventually, voice small and weary.

“Do you want to talk about it?” 

Max shakes her head. “No. But thanks for leaving me his jacket.” 

Susan manages a sad, feeble smile. “I wish I’d left you more.” 

“I get why you couldn’t though. Neil is weird about Billy.” Max’s brow crinkles as she climbs onto the couch next to Susan. “Do you think it’s because he feels guilty?” 

Susan flounders, at a loss. They hardly ever discuss Neil so frankly. Susan’s felt the pressure to only recently, because with Neil unraveling and unpredictable, she needs to make sure Max stays out of harm’s way. She needs to make sure Max understands being in harm’s way is very possible now that Billy is no longer here to be a buffer and the loss has made Neil more volatile than ever. He is suffering, though from grief or guilt or something else entirely, Susan hasn't the faintest clue. 

“I don’t know,” she answers, uncomfortable things swirling in her stomach. “I really don’t know.” 

“Do you think he misses him?” Max picks up the book Susan had been reading and traces a fingertip over the illustration on the cover. 

“In his own way, yes. I think he does.” 

Max wrinkles her nose at that but if she disagrees, she doesn’t say so. 

“Emotions are extremely complicated sometimes,” Susan adds as she thinks of the ease with which Neil pinned her down and split her open on the bathroom floor. The same ease with which she’d made him breakfast anyway, sprinkled pepper on his eggs and lightly buttered two slices of rye toast for him. Cut them diagonally, just the way he liked. “They don’t always make sense.” 

“That’s for sure.” Max flicks the hard book cover and runs her hand back through her hair. 

Susan studies her rumpled pajamas and messy hair. She’s still so young but growing by the day. Susan can barely believe she’s going into high school this year. 

“Can I brush your hair?” she asks, tucking some of it back from Max’s face. 

“Okay, I guess,” Max mutters, shrugging. 

It’s no secret that she doesn’t care for Susan brushing her hair out, but today she seems willing, if begrudgingly, to play nice. So Susan fetches the hair brush and sits behind her on the couch. She begins with the ends and slowly works the bristles upward. 

“Do you have plans with your friends today?” 

“Yeah, but not till later.” 

“Would you want to do something together before you go?” Susan ventures hopefully. As relieved as she is Max has been spending most of her time outside the house, she can’t help being a bit selfish. “Maybe a puzzle or a quick card game for old time’s sake?” 

“Okay,” Max agrees and even though her back is to her, Susan thinks she can hear a smile in her voice. “That might be nice…hey, Mom?” 

“Yes?” 

“I’m sorry I called you a jellyfish the other day.” 

Susan pauses. She sets the brush aside and loops her arms around Max, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. She cannot express the affection she feels burbling up in words, so she just kisses her again, drinking in her smell and her warmth. Max leans back into her with a soft exhale. Her hands slide over Susan’s, like she’s keeping them in place. 

* * *

Susan’s worst nightmare comes to life midway through October. Max doesn’t come home by curfew. At first Susan tries to make excuses for her, but as the hours tick by, Neil catches a whiff of her own panic and calls her on her bluff. Susan chews her nails to ruin as she paces in circles, stomach churning while Neil shakes his fists and curses. She doesn’t know what to be more afraid of, Max not coming home or what will happen to Max if she does come home. 

The back door creaks open after midnight. Max slinks through it and creeps into the kitchen. Her clothes are dirtied, her hair is tangled, and Susan wonders if the goggles on her head and the bandanna around her neck are pieces of an early Halloween getup she hasn’t fully put together yet. 

“Do you have any idea what time it is?” Neil demands, staring her down. 

“It’s late, I know,” Max admits, guiltily ducking her head. 

Susan hovers on the sidelines, unsure what to do with her hands, heart pounding like a hammer. 

“Where on earth were you?” 

There is a long pause as Max visibly flounders. Susan can tell she’s cooking up a lie but with any luck, Neil will assume it's just his intimidation that's making her squirm. 

“The woods. We were burying a time capsule in the woods, we didn’t realize how late it was. But Steve gave me a ride home.” Max lifts her head. “I didn’t walk home in the dark, I swear.” 

“He gave you a ride home,” Neil repeats. “This boy, Steve.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“An older boy, then?”

“Um...yes?” 

“So an older boy brings you home after midnight, and you expect your mother and I to believe some bullshit about a time capsule in the woods?” 

Max gasps and Susan surges forward, her hands warily fluttering around Neil’s forearm. 

“Let’s not go that far, Neil. I’m sure she just lost track of time. Max knows better than to do anything indecent.” Susan smiles nervously, hoping to placate him.

Her turns storming eyes on her and Max takes the opportunity to dart past. She’s small and quick and she almost makes it too. Almost. Neil’s arm thrusts out, sending Susan stumbling back. He closes a fist around the ponytail streaming behind Max’s head and yanks so viciously, she yelps. 

“Did I say you were dismissed, Maxine?” he booms, dragging her back into the kitchen. Her dirty sneakers skim helplessly over the floor, unable to even get her footing as she reaches back and tries to pry him off. 

“Let her go!” Susan lunges forward, stomach lurching. 

“You want me to let her go, Susan? Fine!” Neil whips Max with a force and releases her hair. She crashes into the refrigerator so hard, it sends papers flying and magnets clattering to the floor. 

Max’s arms pinwheel for balance, her knees knocking together. 

Susan dives between them before anything else can happen. She won’t let anything further happen to her daughter. If it means she’ll be beaten to a pulp herself, then so be it. If Neil is going to hurt someone tonight, it will be Susan. 

Neil’s eyes go saucer wide, like he can’t actually believe she’d dare to do this. But then Susan realizes she isn’t actually what's startled him. He isn't looking at her at all. He’s looking to the left of her. Over by the coat hooks, something has caught his eye. Evidently something so jarring, that he drops his hand. 

“What the…?” He steps around Susan, heading toward the hooks. 

“Go to your room,” Susan hisses to Max, taking advantage of his distraction. 

Max ducks out from behind her and hurries away. 

Susan follows behind Neil to see what’s caught his attention and intending to hold it after.

“Is this…?” Neil seizes a familiar leather sleeve peeking out between the other coats, and draws a sharp breath, incensed. “Goddamnit, Susan! I told you to get rid of everything!” 

He’s yelling at her and Susan is suddenly very aware of two things. The first is that his discovery of Billy’s jacket means she won’t have any trouble keeping him angry at her instead of Max. The second, is an acute awareness of where they are. Neil is at the end of the coat hooks, standing mere inches from the basement steps. Susan is beside him. In between him and the back door. If he struck out at her, perhaps she could flee through it.

“What part of ‘everything’ didn’t you understand!”

Neil turns livid eyes on her, his veins bulging out of his skin as he clenches the leather in his fist. She sees those knuckles tighten like she’s seen so many times before, around Billy, around her life, around Max’s pretty copper penny ponytail mere moments ago. And something, something in her gives way to something else and all Susan knows is where Neil is standing, and what could happen if she just— 

(pushed) 

Susan blanks. 

She absently registers the sound of a crunch. Like a thick celery stick snapped in half. She has to snap the celery sticks in half so they fit in Max’s lunch box, the green M&M’s one, only Max is too old for that now, has been for awhile and— and it certainly wasn’t celery that just crunched, and her hands are stretched out in front of her. 

Neil isn’t at the top of the flight of stairs anymore and Susan initially doesn’t understand where he went. She doesn’t recall thrusting her arms out, but she must have because her hands are stretched in front of her. 

Susan’s hands are stretched out in front of her and Neil isn’t standing before her anymore, all fury and fists and inches away from the steps. 

Susan lowers her hands. Susan lowers her eyes. She sees Billy’s jacket first. Neil must’ve let go of it about halfway down. She sees him next. At the bottom, on the landing, one leg wretchedly twisted under him, head cocked at a grotesque angle as a small pool of blood spreads beneath his crown. 

For a heartbeat, Susan believes him dead. Then she becomes aware of the faint, wheezing breaths rattling out of him. Of his eyes staring up at her, stricken and flabbergasted. 

She exhales shakily and trots down the stairs. The shock in Neil’s gaze morphs into an accusation. 

“Don’t look at me like that, Neil,” Susan whispers through trembling lips as she clumsily climbs over him, pinning her knee to her husband’s throat. “Don’t look at me.” 

She presses down with all of her weight, grinding her kneecap so hard into his windpipe that it almost aches. She slides one hand over his eyes. Her other hand covers his mouth. She tightly pinches his nostrils shut with her thumb and pointer finger. Susan closes her own eyes but she keeps her hands right where they are, firmly in place.

Susan’s eyes sting behind the lids but she keeps them shut too tight to let the tears through. If she opens them, she might release Neil, and she simply cannot allow herself to do that. Not until she can be sure that, that— that there won’t be any more wheezing. 

Three minutes. 

It shouldn’t take any longer than three minutes to ensure the end of the wheezing. Susan remembers the rule of threes. A person can go three weeks without food, three days without water, three minutes without oxygen. 

God. 

Susan is always a frog in a pot of boiling water. She never notices the temperature rising until the meat starts melting off her bones. Her life is a roadmap of terrible decisions, one after the other, but Neil was the worst by far.

Susan does not draw her hands away until she feels her husband die under them. She cannot explain how she feels it, only that she does. She senses the moment when the life trickles out of him and finally opens her eyes. 

Neil’s are open too. They are blank. They are empty. Somehow Susan still feels their accusation. 

She slowly removes her knee from his throat and moves backward up the first few steps in an awkward crablike scuttle. Her hand brushes over something smooth. Billy’s jacket. 

Susan snatches it and sinks her teeth into the leather like a bit to stop herself from screaming. She must not scream. She must not wake the neighbors. The taste of leather is tough between her teeth, hints of hairspray and stale cigarette smoke scratching the back of her throat. 

She bites down until the scream shrivels up inside of her. 

Relaxing her jaw, Susan reaches for the railing with a trembling hand. Brings herself to unsteady feet. She is going to put Billy’s jacket back on the hook and she isn’t going to hide it behind the other coats this time. She is going to splash her face with cold water and collect herself enough to dial 9-1-1. After that, she'll go to Max's room and check on her. 

Susan turns around and stops dead in her tracks when she sees Max standing at the top of the stairs, eyes bugging out of her skull. 

Susan gasps in horror, dropping Billy’s jacket as her hands fly to her mouth. 

“I told you to go to your room!” 

How long has Max been there? How much of that did she see? 

“I came back out when I heard something crash,” Max says slowly. “I was scared he was hurting you.” 

The look on Max’s face, Susan’s never seen it before. The way her daughter’s eyes hold her is alien, and all she can do is lower her hands from her own face. 

“N-Neil fell,” she quavers out. “I-I went to check his pulse, he— he doesn’t have one.” 

Max stares at her, unblinking. 

Did she see? Does she know?

What is it that she thinks she saw? What is it that she’s seeing now? 

Susan wishes she recognized the look on her face. 

“I checked his pulse,” Susan repeats, blinking rapidly. “It happened so fast, Max. He broke his neck, he must’ve died instantly…” 

Max takes a step down. She curls one hand around the railing as the other stretches out slowly, carefully. Like she’s reaching out to a spooked animal. Susan chokes on a sob and feels the first tears flood hot over her cheeks. 

“He died instantly,” she repeats, like if she says it enough times, it will become the truth. “He must have. It happened so fast, Max, I couldn’t stop him.” 

It could be the truth, couldn’t it. Susan could never stop Neil from doing anything. Least of all falling down. 

“I know, Mom,” Max promises, soft and clear, wiggling her outstretched hand. “You don’t have to cry. It’s okay, okay?” 

Susan sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. She takes her daughter’s hand. Max gently tugs and Susan finds the strength to climb the rest of the steps. 

**Author's Note:**

> i finally realize why i'm so hung up on this background character in this fandom i'm not even in, her actress looks just like a slightly younger version of my old boss who i had a giant crush on. omg, how did i not realize this sooner.


End file.
